Night Train: A Biography of Sonny Liston

by Nick Tosches

'Dazzling... An unforgettable journey to some of boxing's darkest places' Steve Bunce, author of Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing

Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2000

A breathtakingly brutal and evocative account of the life of infamous boxing world champion Sonny Liston

Sonny Liston is one of the most controversial men the boxing world has ever seen. He rose from a childhood of grinding poverty to become 1962's heavyweight world champion. He spent time in prison, he was known to have mob connections, he was hated and vilified by his public. And after he lost the world title to Cassius Clay in a spectacular fall from grace, he died under mysterious and never fully explained circumstances.

Sonny Liston's life story is an unsolved mystery and an underappreciated tragedy. In uncompromising detail, Nick Tosches captures the shadowy figure of Liston, this most mesmerising and enigmatic of boxing antiheroes.

Genres: Biography, Sports, Nonfiction

ebook

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Nick Tosches was an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet. His 1982 biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire, was praised by Rolling Stone magazine as "the best rock and roll biography ever written."

Reviews

[Sean Peters (A Good Thriller) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Night Train: The Sonny Liston Story' by Nick Tosches is not always an easy read. Even Sonny Liston did not know his birthdate, or it changed often.

I was slightly disappointed by this book. Don't get me wrong, it is still an interesting read, but Tosches fails to provide new insight into the cause of his death, amongst other things, in fact the whole book is a mystery, murder case and a history of his boxing career.

But there is more to the story than boxing, Sonny Liston was not a nice man, and many of his friends were not nice people, many friends spending years in prisons.

Of course the main story is of course Liston/Clay and Liston/Ali but again these are stories that will never be told, were they fixed, yes I am sure they were especially the second, but nobody knows.

Difficult to follow as well, so many friends, managers, trainers, mafia, even brothers and sisters the whole story is vague.

Sadly there is no happy end to this story except the biggest mystery and the sadness of a World Boxing Champion dead in his home for 5 to 7 days, no visitors.

How did he die, murder, drugs, gambling, natural causes, drinking, I still don't know

Okay book.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A biography of the former boxing champion, known for being a bad guy, the "phantom punch" and his mysterious death.

Sonny Liston was tough, greedy, and none too swift. After going to prison, where he learned how to box, he got in the mob, and worked his way into being world champion.

I would have liked a more thorough examination of his short film career. Other than that, a great biography.

[Philip Girvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tosches's attempt to bring a life lived in the shadows to the light is one of my absolute all-time favorite books.

While certainly not the purest form of biography -- Tosches tends to offer asides, observations, and other commentary -- the writing is, at times, beautiful; what Tosches manages to pull from the shadows is intriguing; and, the subject of the book is a curious human being.

I've returned to this book over a half dozen times since it was first published, but it had been a decade since my last reading. It's better than I remembered and I remembered it being pretty damn good.

[Godzilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before this book I knew little of Liston: heavyweight champ, legendary build and punching ability.

So my eyes were opened wide with this tale of his textbook tough childhood, natural fighting ability and his descent into a murky world of match fixes and criminality.

The book opens, and closes, with his death, for which there are many theories, but little substantiated fact.

In between there is a far from usual biography, doubt prevails over his actual birthdate, his injuries throughout his career, who got what from his earnings, in fact there is little that can be 100% verified.

This makes for a frustrating but facsintaing tale, and it deals with a time where the underworld ruled such areas of life with almost impunity.

It desn't portray Liston as a perfect character, far from it: the man was brutal and nasty, yet apparently loved kids.

Excellent read, and great commentary on a troubled individual who history will find it hard to pigeonhole.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly remarkable: a book about a boxer that really isn't about boxing. First book I've read by Nick Tosches and he writes very well. Quite a tragic figure was Sonny Liston ... perhaps the saddest is that while he ended up (albeit briefly) one of the most people on the planet, no-one knows what day he was born, or the day he departed.

[Jack Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good bio, not as good as his bio of Dean Martin though.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best boxing bios I've read. A real interesting tragic story of a champion whose infamy overshadows his triumphs.

[Allan Heron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale from the dark side of boxing. The details of Liston's life has always been a bit of a mystery and this book attempts to unravel this. It does this to a certain extent but still leaves many questions hanging.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok book, not really my cup of tea.

[Del · Rating 2 out of 5]

Should have called it Slow Train

[Léo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une belle histoire noyée sous une nuée de détails non essentiels rendant le récit presque encyclopédique et par conséquent indigeste.

[Axel Ainglish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This kind of biography of Sonny Liston, the heavyweight world champion previous to Mohamed Ali (alias Cassius Clay), is an easy reading one. Though the mistery around the death of this sort of bad gorilla or good one, depending on how you take it, was something never cleared. And I read it a bit because of that, for the guy was definitely not an interesting one. And that I knew. If something I've clear, after having read this, is that Liston was possibly more a victim than the thug or /and lately, a drug dealer. He was a victim of his own ignorance, to start with. The colossus we all know who had that powerful weapon that was his left arm, was quite a defenceless child in his most inner side. The sort of star journalist Nick Toshes is does a good job with this book in what maintaining the interest refers. He tell us many things, but fails in explaining what happened with Liston death. Lacking a best explanation, he surrenders to the Police official version. About the rest, everything is clear. Good but..up to boxing fans to decide.

[Pierre-emmanuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biographie du champion poids lourd Sonny Liston. Belle traversée des US ségrégationniste et mafieuse sur fond de boxe. Un peu plus de mal avec l'écriture que j'ai trouvé souvent trop factuelle sans trop savoir où l'auteur voulait en venir.

[nicholas gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

So so

This book doesn’t give much insight into the man himself. It seems from this book that nobody actually knew much at all about Sonny.